Writings by Cole Huffman

Jan 29

Moral Genre

The one sermon a non-evangelical relative heard me
preach was a scold. The world is full of softballs for preachers to stand in
pulpits and hit long. That Sunday I blasted a movie Roger Egbert probably
thumbs-upped. Then I noticed my relative, his face creased with a “Seriously?”
grin. All he wanted to know afterwards was whether I had seen the movie. The grin returned when I said no, only read a
review.

A Sunday night prayer meeting focusing on the
nations pivots to prayers for this nation. Huckleberry Finn said you can’t pray
a lie. But you can pray a scold and I overhear throughout the room prayers for
America in tones of moral exasperation. It’s my turn to pray: I announce to God
how challenging it is for the follower of Jesus living in the States to reside
in the tension between appreciating personal freedom and being appalled at what
we do with freedom.

Is there any place for being appalled anymore? Any
place for scolding? Any place for saying “This is an outrage!” and be taken seriously?

One doesn’t pose those questions without a moral
center of course. But moral complaints sound to most people now—even people
inside the church—like whining or nitpickiness if not outright judgmentalness. To
render moral judgment publically is like pounding one key on the piano, which
is to say it is not music to anyone’s ears. Or think of old vinyl records—how
they ceased to be music to your ears when they got scratched. But then DJs started
scratching records on turntables and a new musical genre was born.

American
society, ever inventive and adaptive, excels in midwifing new moral genres. Genres
differentiate stylistic categories in the arts and are supposed to be
respected. One wouldn’t go to a poetry reading at the bookstore and fault the
poet for not writing novels. One shouldn’t attend a play expecting a movie. One
doesn’t arrive at a George Strait concert and expect a Macklemore performance. But
then when Macklemore is the gay wedding singer on the recent Grammys telecast….

You know where I’m going with this, don’t you? That Grammys
mass wedding was a scene of moral genre, and we’re supposed to respect moral
genre not scold it. Driving to my office the next morning, I tuned to a local rock
radio station and listened as two DJs read negative reactions from Facebook and
Twitter to the Grammys mass wedding. The DJs hardly veiled their contempt for objections
to it, reserving their greatest scorn for “you religious types” who don’t
realize “no one is listening to you anymore.”

Staying with the Grammys for a moment more in
service to my larger point, some performances were collaborations: the genre mash
of Metallica performing with concert pianist Lang Lang, for example. These
collaborations got mixed reviews. “While it was interesting to see such
different styles coalesce,” one reviewer wrote, “it seemed like the artists
were sacrificing their art to make the union work.” Meaning what? Meaning
genre wants to float on its own like a beach ball held under waves always pushes
up from the sea.

So we live in a cultural atmosphere wherein people think
of morality in categories of genre, I think. Morality is more like an artistic
value than a metaphysical absolute. It can be likened to you and I differing
over whether country music is good; we can differ so long as you don’t disparage
me my tastes for it. In the milieu of American common culture, differences in and
preferences for genres must be respected, artistically and morally too, for this
thinking has been imposed on morality. Thus to scold is to be thought disrespectful.
To be appalled is to be thought not appreciative of diversities. To say, “This
is an outrage!” is to be thought hateful.

There’s not been mutation of morality in our time so
much as the metamorphosis of morality into genres. Genres allow niche and nuance.
People ensconce their beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in such ways that you
or I taking issue with them (judging them to be wrong) makes us look out of place,
like no one is listening to us anymore. We’re told to back off our moral lines
in the stone. Sand is the more preferred medium. Jesus used the genre of
parable to signal it would be this way, Matthew 7:24-27.

The Bible itself consists of literary genres though not
moral genres. Make no mistake: Christianity is a firm moral creed. But Christian
morality collaborates with mercy such that the art of neither are sacrificed. It’s
mercy that motivates us to learn how to navigate our neighbors’ moral genres for
their good. And this requires more immersion in the genres of Scripture, not
less. Let the Bible’s history and poetry, parables and prophetic oracles become
the points on our moral compasses. The metamorphosis of morality into genres is
not leading or lending to human flourishing but more confusions of what it
means to be human.